It is your human family
who give you your name, your sense of identity, your meaning. They can be the
ones who believe in you, support you in time of trouble.

They can give you purpose
and drive: you do things – usually subconsciously – to make your parents proud
of you, or for your husband or wife, or for your children.

It is our family who give us our values, who shape how we see the world - and even if we rebel against our family and their values, it specifically your own family that you rebel against.

And if your
experience of family is not happy, often that drives you to make your own
family very different.

2. Possessions

We live for money and the
things that money can buy.

That is what gives you
purpose, what gets you out of bed each day: do the trudge to the metro: you are
going to work so that you can get money – and then go shopping – clothes,
accessories, phone, holidays, dacha, car, flat

And when we’ve got money
or stuff we feel secure and confident, with a sense of control.

3. Basically we live
for ourselves

I’m afraid that when all
is said and done, there is nothing and nobody that we care for, more than we
care for ourselves.

But, says Jesus in our
reading, if you want to follow me, you have got to put me before your family, possessions
and even your own life.

If you are going to follow
me, you need to make me the foundation of your life – the one you ultimately
trust in – the one who you ultimately live for.

This is not an easy saying
of Jesus – although as someone said, there are very few easy sayings of Jesus

1. Jesus says that our
love for him must make our love for our family and our life look like hatred.

That is what he means when
he says that we are to hate our father, mother, wife, husband, children, brother
and sister.

That comes as a bit of a
shock, especially for those of us brought up in cultures where there is nothing
more important than the family or ‘family values’.

But this is the Jesus who commands us to love our enemies, so he is clearly not
asking us to work to destroy our families, or even to cast them off, walk away and reject them – even if you can find
that in some of the stories of the desert fathers.

This is not an excuse to
walk away from difficult relationships.

I remember hearing the
story of a vicar in Edinburgh who married a woman. The marriage did not start well.
He began to think that he had made a bad decision, in fact the worst decision
of his life. Not surprisingly his wife was depressed and negative. But then
someone sat down with him and said, “Look – forget about whether you made the
right or the wrong decision. The reality is that you married her, and you
promised before God that you would be faithful to her. So you’ve got to make it
work now: for your sake, for your jobs sake, for her sake and for God’s sake”.

He listened, took that
advice onboard and began to make the effort to make the marriage work. He gave
time to his wife instead of avoiding her. He praised rather than criticised. He
began to listen. He began to serve her. And he was transformed and she was transformed and the
marriage was transformed.’

The institution of the
family, based on husband and wife, male and female, coming together and forming
a new unit, is God given and is the foundation of society.

Jesus himself rebukes the Pharisees
for not caring for their families (Mark 7.9-13) Paul writes to Timothy and
commands that Christians love their families and show that in care of elderly
relatives, and that if they do not, they are worse than the pagans (1 Timothy 5:8)

But however great a gift
is the family, however precious the family, we must never make it God, and it
must always come second to God and to his word.

Again, we see that in the life
of Jesus.

In Mark 3.31-35, when Jesus
mother and brother arrive to take him away – to look after him because they are
concerned for him and think he is overdoing it – but Jesus does not go with them.
In fact he seems quite hard. He uses the language of inside and outside, and
Mary and his biological family is – at this stage – on the outside.

Many have had to make the
choice between Jesus and family or tribe or culture.

They’ve been driven out, hounded,
attacked by their family for choosing to follow Jesus

Think of N – CYM Ipswich

Think of S –
Hydrabad. Family cut him off and would have killed him if he had not fled.

And for most of us it won’t
be so dramatic, but there will be times when our family want us to go one way, when
God’s word tells us to go another way.

Of course, and I repeat,
this does not mean that we reject our families.

If there is any rejection
it comes from them, not from us as believers.

As far as we are
concerned, if we are rejected because of our faith, we have to do all that we
can to work for reconciliation – but without compromising our decision to follow
Jesus.

We need to put God first.

2. And Jesus says that
this has to be true of our possessions

He says, ‘Anyone who does not give up everything that he has cannot be
my disciple’.

Again, I am not sure that Jesus is calling every one of us to live the
life of a wandering beggar, or even to a monastic life.
Clearly some of the early Christians had private property, and kept that
private property

But what Jesus is saying that we need to be prepared to give up all our
possessions for him, and more than that, that – in fact – all our possessions do belong to him.
When we give him ourselves, we give him everything that we have

We teach tithing – as a model of giving

But actually everything that we have belongs to him.

3. And we have to put God before our own lives.

Jesus says that we have to
hate our own lives:

Again, that does not mean that we are not all to go out and commit suicide, but it does mean that we
are to put our own lives, our own self interest second to him.

He
calls us to take up our cross.

If
you saw a man or woman walking along a street in Jerusalem carrying a cross,
you knew that person was dead. They were being led to the place of execution

So
when Jesus tells us here to take up our cross he is telling us that we need to live
as people who are dead to this world:

Dead
to our abilities, gifts, looks, intellect, strength, fitness, will-power: all
those things that we rely on and therefore value and therefore turn into gods.

Dead
to the praise, or condemnation, or judgement of this world; dead to the things
that this world values – including- family
or tribal identity, money and possessions

And
we need to follow him: to put Jesus and his Word first.

This is a constant
theme of Jesus teaching.

We can’t serve him and at
the same time serve something or someone else

We can’t call him our Lord
and God, and yet at the same time live as if something else is our Lord and God.

In fact, the consequences
of trying to follow Jesus and family, Jesus and possessions, Jesus and self are
disastrous.

And if we just add God to
the list, then it becomes even more pressurised.

I like the story told of
the Admiral who was about to be taken on a small boat to the ship to receive the
salute of the crew. He put one foot in the boat. Unfortunately, the rating who
was meant to be holding the boat to the quay was distracted, and the boat
drifted away from the quay. The admiral found that he had one foot in the boat
and one foot on the quay, and the distance was getting bigger and bigger. And
you can imagine what happened next.

But we are not to do that.
We need to decide where we are going to stand: with Jesus or with all the
other stuff.

And if we are going to
follow Jesus, he needs to take first place above all those other things: above
family and possessions and self.

2. If we try to serve
Jesus and to serve those other things, we will end up with half built towers.

You can see them around
here: where people started building and they ran out of money. And their
memorial is a half-built tower block.

Listen, says Jesus, if you
say that you will follow me, live for the kingdom, but still try to live for
your family or possessions, then it will not work. You will crash, and you will
be shamed

Don’t dream your own
dreams and then tell me what to do so that you can have your dream.

Don’t say that you trust
me when in fact you trust in your ability or your wealth or your family.

3. If we try to serve
Jesus and to serve those other things, we end up facing certain defeat.

You’ll be like a ruler
going to war, without realising that he cannot possibly win that war.

If we are going to follow
Jesus, to trust him, to make him the foundation of our life, then it makes
sense to put him first.

And the astonishing thing
is that all the other things seem to slot into place.

Perhaps for you it is
about having certain anchors.

I will go to church –
whether I want to or not, because I’m going to put Jesus first

I will wear a cross so that I can be identified as a Christian

I will spend a few minutes
each morning in prayer, focussing on him

I will spend a few minutes
at the end of each day in prayer, refocussing on him

I will listen to his word –
whether reading on my own or in a group.

I will tithe – as a token
recognising that all my possessions belong to him

And if you do that, and if
you spend time with Jesus, receive from him, listen to him

Then I think that your
love for your family will deepen

Your possessions will
become a spiritual blessing for you and for many

And you will lose your
life here, but you will gain a glory that is beyond comparison there.

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